Title: Rules and Regulations
Author: Jojo
Email: randomleaves@yahoo.co.uk
Disclaimer: Not mine. Nope. Really not.
Summary: Jonas just has to know a few things, that's all.
Season: Early Season 6
Spoilers: None for Season 6 except the fact that Jonas is there.
A/N: Thanks to Emry *g*.
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"Right." He chewed the end of the pen and stared down at the sheet of paper in front of him. "Okay - I think I've got it."
Sam beamed proudly across the table at him – it hadn't taken her as long as she'd thought to explain. There had been a moment of concern, when the Colonel had first conveyed to her his wish that she be the one who did the explaining, that she would be in Jonas's office all afternoon.
But her worries had been unfounded. He'd caught on quickly and while he had been understandably confused to begin with – what with her complete lack of explanation and all – he seemed ready to just accept it. She had been concerned that his rather over-curious nature – something that went with his job as a scientist – would lead to some awkward questions that she was really unwilling to answer but once Jonas had understood that there would be no explanations, he had got on with it very satisfactorily.
Pulling the end of the pen out of his mouth, he tapped it on the desk. "So... is this it? Nothing else after this?"
Sam slid the sheet towards herself and spun it around. Running her expert eye over the items she had previous listed, she nodded over each one. It all seemed to be complete, and it was also nice and neatly in chronological order, which soothed her logical mind. She did like to see things laid out properly.
"Yeah, that looks to be just about it."
"Right." Jonas licked his lips. "Um, I suppose... I suppose I should memorize this."
Her eyebrows raised. "Do you think that's necessary?"
"Well, yeah, if I want to avoid... upsetting anyone."
"Oh..." She bit her lip. She wasn't sure if she should explain that it wasn't really 'upsetting' anyone... it was just...
Okay, so she supposed it could be called 'upsetting'. That just sounded a little too pathetic for her liking and it *wasn't* pathetic. It was just... dealing with a situation as best as they could.
"I suppose memorizing it would be a good idea. Can you do that?"
Jonas nodded. Eagerly. "Sure! I mean, I learned your Periodic Table in an hour so this should be easy."
Sam managed a smile. The Periodic Table in an hour?
Bite me, she thought uncharitably.
"That's great, Jonas. I really appreciate this. The Colonel," she added, knowing this would be more important to him, "really appreciates this."
Jonas beamed cheerily at her. "I'm glad you asked, Maj... Sam."
Sam started backing away slowly, still smiling. Now that her job was done, she felt she could get out of his way and go back to work, with perhaps a brief stop-off at the Colonel's office to tell him how it went. In code, naturally. "Thanks for being so good about this, Jonas. I'll, um, see you tomorrow morning?"
"In the briefing, sure. Ah... what color are you going to wear tomorrow?"
Sam thought about it, trying to remember which ones were clean and what she'd been wearing all week. Blue, mostly. Time for a change. "Green. Yeah. Green." She made a mental note to also bring that up with the Colonel.
"Okay." Pause. "Cool."
She smiled. "Bye, Jonas."
"Bye, Sam."
The Colonel's office was actually on the same floor as Jonas's, just almost at the opposite end and as she walked along the corridor, she mentally composed what she was going to say to him. It needed to be suitably worded so that there was no embarrassment on either side. After all, when he had raised the issue himself, anyone who hadn't known what he'd been talking about would have been completely confused.
*
"Ah... Carter, a word, please."
Sam looked up from her project and saw the Colonel hovering uncertainly in her doorway. She got rid of the two technicians from her lab by jerking her head expressively and the two young men hurried out, giving the Colonel slightly cross looks for interrupting their experiments.
"What can I do for you, sir?" she queried, dropping a tool onto a space on the table and swiveling on her chair to face him. It appeared that he, too, was working late that evening.
The Colonel all but shuffled into the room, not looking at her. He tapped his fingers on a pile of research books and avoided her eyes. "You and Jonas... get along, right?"
"Insomuch as he doesn't annoy me as much as he does you. Sir," she added, for good measure. You could never be sure with the Colonel. He'd given up trying to convince her to call him Jack long ago, but sometimes, when she was being cheeky, he would give her this look that told her she'd better get back in line or he'd give her hell.
It was a great look, by the way. Just she didn't want to overdose on it.
"Great. I was thinking it was about time someone..."
She saw it coming and her eyes widened. "Not me, sir!" she exclaimed.
He broke and looked her in the eye. "Oh come on, Carter, can you honestly see me having that conversation?" he demanded.
"But.. but... can't... Teal'c do it?" she finished, weakly.
The Colonel just looked at her.
Sam sighed. "Oh. All right," she said grumpily.
"Excellent. Thanks, Carter. Um, I suggest you... make him a list."
"A list, sir?"
"Of all the... things."
In the mood to wind him up, just a little bit, Sam struck an innocent expression. "What kind of 'things', sir?"
He narrowed his eyes at her in a move that was calculated to make her toes curl and she just *bet* he knew that. "The things, Carter, that generally go towards... making up the... rules and regulations of SG-1."
"The rules and..." She blinked and decided it wasn't worth it. "Oh, all right."
Colonel O'Neill let out a relieved breath. "Good. Maybe, you know, you could just make him a list and you wouldn't have to... give a reason behind... the, um, list." His fingers tapped again.
Sam's brow lowered. "A list of things that... oh, I see. Okay. I'll make a list and tell him that those things on the list are a big 'no no' where, um, SG-1 are concerned and then leave it at that."
"Great idea." His eyes flicked to her. "Do you think he'll go for it?"
If she put her most winning smile behind it and the assurance that it was entirely for the Colonel, sure. She nodded. "Pretty sure, Colonel, yeah."
"Great." He tapped the fingers with finality. "Well, that's a load off my mind." He gave her his big, boyish grin. "See you later, Carter. Uh... dinner?"
"In the commissary?" No, in a restaurant, Sam. Get a grip. "Sure, sir."
He nodded briskly and walked out of her lab.
Sam reached for a pen and some memo paper. Concentrating hard, she tried to remember when it had all started and what exactly was the best way to organize this and teach it to Jonas.
*
"How did it go?"
"Fine, sir. He accepted it all with very little complaint."
The Colonel sighed and sat back in his chair, as if he'd been worrying about it all afternoon when in all actuality he had probably compartmentalized it neatly in order to get some work done. "That's good." He rubbed his hands over his eyes and stretched.
Sam trained her eyes on the ceiling for a few moments. She had a worrying tendency to watch him intently when she shouldn't and watching him stretch was one of those occasions.
"Did you, ah, include everything?"
She rolled her eyes. "Yes, sir."
"Even the... mission to... that very cold place?"
Sam turned her head to the side and considered him. "Sir, that was where it all started."
He cleared his throat. "Just checking." He paused and glanced up at her, eyes worried. "Wait, you didn't include the whole... arm wrestling thing?"
"I figured since Feretti regularly asks me to arm wrestle with him, it was unnecessary."
Colonel O'Neill raised a finger. "Good point. Oh, what about... that woman... beginning with 'K'?"
"Well, I sort of filed that in a separate category, along with the other woman," Sam reached up to scratch between her eyes, "beginning with 'L'."
"That's probably a good idea. You really need to keep those occasions separate from the others. Did you..." he paused delicately, "... include any guys in there?"
"Beginning with 'J', 'N', 'M', another 'J' and 'O'?" she asked, smiling just slightly.
He considered this for a moment, eyebrows lowered with thought. Then he nodded. "Yeah. That's all of them. Sure."
"I, ah, didn't include the, um, woman beginning with 'A' because I thought...." She left the sentence open ended and was glad to see he was nodding already.
"Not important. You did good, Carter." The Colonel sighed again and seemed genuinely relieved. "Thanks for doing this for me."
"That's okay, sir. Anything to keep SG-1," she sought for the right words, her mouth parted slightly, "running smoothly."
Colonel O'Neill smiled properly. "Exactly. You want to get dinner now?"
"Sure, sir. Dinner would be nice."
*
Jonas blew out a breath and shook his head. He had been at this for a good couple of hours now and he thought he had it down. To help him out, he'd signed out a load of SG-1's old mission reports and had spread them out on his floor where he was now sitting cross-legged.
He'd made little notes on those small sticky yellow papers – 'Post Its', Sam called them though as far as he could see, you didn't post them anywhere - and stuck them on the appropriate folders. As he ran his eye over them, he couldn't help but wonder what kinds of other rules and regulations the rest of the active teams had. If they were as complicated as SG-1's, he really hoped he never got transferred or he would spend his entire life trying to work out what he could and couldn't say in front of people.
For instance, picking up the file for P5C-768, he read the slightly more detailed note on the front of it with some confusion. One name kept popping up – Laira – and he'd referred to the files to find out that she seemed to be a perfectly nice woman who had given Colonel O'Neill a place to live after the Edora gate had been buried by meteors. For some reason, her name was never to be spoken of in front of Sam and/or Colonel O'Neill. So long as they weren't in the room, he could talk about her, but never in front of them in particular. He had no idea why. Perhaps she had offended them in some way.
Jonas shrugged and dropped the file back down, picking up another one randomly from those spread in front of him. Now this one he found even more strange. Some guy called 'Narim' was never to be mentioned in front of Colonel O'Neill, particularly if Sam was in the room. Now, from the way both Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter had portrayed the man, he seemed to be honorable in every way possible, a really nice person who had died protecting Earth – which completely went against any reason for Colonel O'Neill to dislike him.
Damn.
If the Colonel didn't like this Narim guy, then he was never going to like Jonas.
Jonas suddenly wanted to eat really bad. Looking around, all he could see was the banana Sam had brought down for a snack earlier and had forgotten to take with her when she left.
He reached up and grabbed it. Peeling it carefully as he'd seen Sam do, he went on to another file. Memory stamping, he mentally repeated to himself, munching on the banana. Jonah. Thera. Memory stamping.
Hey, these bananas were really great.